Chemistry Turn Babies into Rappers for Toddlebox

For #YOTO (You Only Toddle Once), Chemistry teamed with Piranha Bar to create a music video for the rapping toddlers, with VFX used to make lead rapper 'Slim Baby' (actually played by two identical twins) look as if he is lip-syncing the words of the song.

Director Richard Chaney summed up the problems of working with such young kids, saying "herding cats has nothing on shooting a dozen lively toddlers under three." He goes on to explain how they achieved the video: "Getting an 11-month-old to maintain eye contact with camera in the style of MCs and rappers we all know and love was only possible using an old favourite of documentary makers, the ‘Interrotron’, that allows the baby to see the director’s face through the camera lens. In post we then made the baby appear to sing by animating all but the hero baby's eyes. Various combinations of 3D and 2D animation were used depending on the requirements of each shot."

The rap itself, from 'Def Pram Records', is a hip hop first; a piece about the developmental and nutritional needs of under-3s as providing by Toddlebox, a nutritional advice site made by food brand Danone. It features such lines as "dance so hard, got nappy rash" and "check out my vocabulary/my brain is growing B.I.G." while the visuals reference Run-DMC (or should be 'Crawl-DMC'?), and the Beastie Boys (or should that be....oh, you get it, they're baby rappers, fill in the blanks yourself.)

Click here to see another campaign from Chemistry that saw them putting cameras on Lidl trollies.